SpaceDye Vest
by justletmebreathe
Summary: After being commited to an asylum, Sarah thinks back on some of the aspects of her life. That is, until her father comes in and tries to take away a certain book from her... Currently, it's only a one-shot - but I'm thinking about continuing it.


**Yayness! My first Labyrinth fanfiction!**

**Anyway, good to finally finish one. This took me forever. Not kidding. Like, three weeks. I had a hard time getting it right. I'm still not even sure I like the ending. Plus, it didn't help that I couldn't find the right song for it, either (I always associate the Underground with music, for some reason.) Anyway, even though this is currently a one-shot, I might write more to it. I just had this nagging at the back of my brain to write this, so... here it goes. Please read and review! You love me, right? puppy dog eyes**

**Oh, by the way, the song is 'Space Dye Vest' by the most amazing band ever, Dream Theater.**

_Falling through pages of Martens on angels_

_Feeling my heart pull west_

_I saw the future dressed as a stranger_

_Love in a space-dye vest_

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't eat.

I couldn't even think.

I forced myself to take in the air that suffocated me, sputtering out a cough when my lungs seemed to collapse in defeat at the weight they were being forced to take on.

_I was dying._

_Love is an act of blood and I'm bleeding_

_A pool in the shape of a heart_

_Beauty projection in the reflection_

_Always the worst way to start_

My eyes, I knew, were empty. Devoid of all feeling. Black, no longer brown, stared emptily out into the darkness, the darkness I knew so well. I hadn't seen the light for years - I couldn't remember it. I couldn't feel it. I couldn't see it. Couldn't touch it. Couldn't hold it.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't eat.

I couldn't think.

A blast of hot air flooded over me, soldering my hands in their insufferable heat. Quickly, unthinking, the action involuntary, I shoved my body beneath the tattered, cold blankets lying over my sickly thin frame, curling in my head so that it rested against my stomach. I felt like a child, not yet born. A stillborn, a miscarriage. A failure. Unwanted.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't eat.

I couldn't think.

_Take me now!_ My voice longed to cry to the air, to the sky, hoping that he would hear it. He had to hear it. He was the one who had broken me - did he not deserve to hear my last breath? My last wish? My last hope?

_This is not how I want it to end_

It was him. It was always about him. It was never me, never her, never it - it was always him. If I was the darkness, he was the light. If I was the sun, he stood to be the moon. Close to my gravity, but still broken from me, denying me of everything.

And still I couldn't hate him.

_And I'll never be open again_

I had tried to force myself to feel detestation, rage, hatred, anger, fury at his presence, at his picture, at his voice, even as it sounded as a lonely companion in my head. Even as his eyes never sought for me, though I could swear that at times, when I walked lonely down the barren country roads, I saw a lonesome barn owl follow my dreary movements with his careful eyes.

That was years ago, when I still knew light. Before I realized everything that he meant to me, before I tried to tell every soul I had ever encountered of my journey.

_There's no one to take my blame_

_If they wanted to_

Before they put me here. Here, in this sickly sterile 'hospital,' as they had so abhorrently put it, where I had been confined against the sunshine. That was when I knew, knew that he was my light. The last traces of him, of the sun, of the earth and the fairytales I once knew were true, were over, gone, overcome, lost.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't eat.

I couldn't think.

Broken words bubbled at the back of my tattered throat, burning me with their soldering desire to be free. I forced them back down to my heart, where I knew they could never free themselves. I'd long ago become a black hole - a gravitational force that destroyed everything that I touched, everything I loved, everything that dared come within five feet of me. That was why the nurses had stopped coming, I knew. They knew that I was dangerous in my suicidal hatred, my suicidal depression. Even Toby had stopped his sporadic visits to my dreary hospital room. Now, when they were near, I'd try to give a tiny, unconvincing smile, only to discover that it bore the sign of insanity, of self-hatred so intense it could lead to a mass genocide of hospital officials.

_There's nothing to keep me sane_

_And it's all the same to you_

I couldn't hurt him. I'd stop myself, suck myself into my own black hole, to save him. I'd hurt myself to save him from me, from the path of infinite destruction I'd led myself down.

A jarring, scraping sound came from my right and I gently peeked out my head from beneath the covers to see the daily tray of dank food that was never eaten sitting, lonely, on the floor. I didn't bother getting up to grab it - my life was wasting away. I hadn't eaten for weeks, and I wasn't going to start sustaining my pitiful, loveless life now. If I ate even a grape I knew I would loose my suicidal battle.

Another scraping. This time it was the door, the dark crevice that kept me staring into his eyes at night when I closed my own. I always saw his face - never anything else - behind my eyelids, in my dreams, in every pit of darkness I'd ever known. It wasn't something you could get rid of, what anyone could get rid of. His face… it was inhuman. Different.

Heavenly.

A rather short figure scampered in through the door, looking, to me at least, bleak and oppressive. I cursed quietly to myself - not aloud, but within the deep confines of my darkened mind - as I saw who it was.

I was utterly surprised - I'd thought I was beyond recognizing anything I'd known before.

He bent down slowly to pick up the forgotten tray, placing it gently atop the faded wood nightstand that peeked back at me from beneath the covers.

'Sarah,' he sighed, running a hand helplessly down his face. 'Sarah, you need to eat.'

I huddled back beneath the tattered covers, pointlessly hiding myself from the penetrating stare my father gave me.

'Leave me _alone_,' I squeaked, my voice airy and cracked from disuse. I covered my head with my hands, the action making me feel just a bit better. Twisted, but hidden. It was an uncomfortable exchange.

My breath caught in my throat when I realized my action had dislodged my barely-used pillow.

No, no! He couldn't find it!

I fought to move before he could see it, but my own self-destruction had weakened me, slowing my movements perceptibly. Before I could blink, he was there, glaring furiously down at the corner of glossy red that peeked from beneath my pillowcase.

'Sarah, you're not supposed to have this with you,' he admonished, taking it in his hand.

'_No,'_ I moaned, ignoring the tears I could barely feel rolling down my cheeks. 'You can't have it!'

'Sarah, I'm sorry if it hurts you, but I have you. It's not helping your mental…'

'No!' I cried, flinging the covers off and taking firm hold of the book. I was shocked at the strength I'd gained from simply wanting it, _wanting _to keep it.

But I couldn't lost it. It was my last connection to my dreams, my friends. To him. That tiny, simple, insignificant book held all the significance in the world. _I couldn't let go._

But he was still infinitely stronger than I. he pulled hard on the book, not wanting to unsettle me, but knowing what he had to do, still careful not to dislodge me from my place on the bed. I felt it slipping from my fingers, tearing my soul away along with it. Every part of who I was had been lodged into that book - every fiber of my being had been inscribed into it, every portion of my soul sucked into its glistening ink. I couldn't' let it go now.

I felt my hope slipping away with it, and I felt lost, more lost than I had ever felt in my life. What could I do?

_Damn it, what can I do!_

'Jareth!' I screamed, the last of my desperate hold on the book falling away.

Death would be a welcome visitor now.

_And I'll have no more dreams to defend_

_And I'll never be open again_


End file.
